THE INFLUENCE OF TENSILE STRENGTH OF SOILS ON THE BEARING CAPACITY ANALYSIS BY RIGID PLASTIC FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Abstract

Classical solutions of bearing capacity are mainly based on the analytical solutions of metals. However,the tensile strength characteristics of soils are totally different from those of metals. In this article, no tensile stress condition for a first invariant of a stress tensor I₁ ≤0 is introduced and implemented into a rigidplastic finite element method. The influence of I₁ condition on the bearing capacity of shallow foundations are investigated by rigid plastic finite element analysis. The condition of I₁ ≤0 has a limited influence,except for the case of c(> 0), ϕ= 0. However, this condition contributes to the improvement of numerical accuracy and calculation stability of a rigid plastic finite element method.